Louise Miller-Frost (Boothby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Tangney for moving this important motion. I'm really pleased to be part of a government that has reduced the gender pay gap to 13 per cent, the lowest gender pay gap in Australia ever. To be clear, the correct gender pay gap should be zero. It doesn't seem too much of a stretch to say that you should paid the same amount for the same job irrespective of gender. Thirteen per cent is a great step forward, but this still means that, on average, working women, women working full-time, can expect to take home $252.30 less per week than men; that's a significant amount. We have a way to go.

In May 2022, under the previous government, the gender pay gap sat at 14.1 per cent—so to see it turn around so quickly under this government, to record low levels, is very pleasing. We've also seen a turnaround in Australia's rating at the World Economic Forum global gender gap index; we are now rated 26th out of 146, up from 43rd in 2022. These sorts of changes don't happen by accident; they happen because the government cares about gender equality and implements deliberate policies to address it.

We've made significant investments across our first two budgets that support women—in child care, paid parental leave, women's safety and wages. We expanded the eligibility for parenting payment single. We're delivering cheaper child care for working families, resulting in an 11 per cent average drop in cost across the country. We expanded the government's paid parental leave scheme, making it more flexible for families to give them more choice in how they share care and encouraging fathers to also take parental leave because it's important to normalise parenting leave for men.

We're also abolishing the punitive ParentsNext program. I am part of the select committee that looked into this, and we heard so many stories from mothers; it was primarily targeted, 95 per cent, at single mothers. Imagine a government program cutting all income support for a mother with a nine-month-old baby if she missed playgroup because the child was sick and she hadn't called in on time. Imagine knowing your attendance at playgroup—supposed to be a bonding time, promoting child development—was being monitored.

Another important step to closing the gender pay gap is the key reforms in the Workplace Gender Equality Amendment (Closing the Gender Pay Gap) Bill 2023, which will require the WGEA to publish gender pay gaps at employer level. From 27 February 2024, WGEA will, for the first time, publish employer level gender pay gaps for employers with 100 employees or more. Publishing this information increases pay gap transparency, assists employees to make more informed choices about where they want to work and encourages employers to take action to close gender pay gaps in their workforces.

Gender pay discrimination is often a hidden disadvantage for women and can affect women at all stages of their career. We know there is data that shows that female university graduates in their first job are, on average, paid less than their male counterparts irrespective of grades—and it goes through to executive. I personally experienced this in a workplace as one of three executives of equal level and responsibility. I discovered I was being paid significantly less than my two male counterparts. I had to fight to have this addressed. I shouldn't have had to fight.

If you add to this the mummy tax of the lost career momentum that women experience from taking parental leave and working around child care and schooling arrangements in their prime career years, there is a significant impact on women's finances, not to mention the loss to our economy of their talents. And, of course, those years that they aren't working or are working reduced hours at reduced pay are the very years they need to be maxing out their superannuation payments. The lifelong pay gap has very real consequences. Women retire with significantly less superannuation, savings and assets, and so women retire into poverty. It's not surprising that older women are overrepresented in the homeless population.

The fact is that 50.7 per cent of the Australian population is female and our experiences of society, community, health services, careers, economics and much more are different. Certainly, our outcomes are different. I have used the example of superannuation, poverty and homelessness. So it's important when we make decisions in this place that we think about how those decisions will play out for both women and men.

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